1980s

                    There lives a girl with her father in a hut, which is far from the village and near to rice and vegetable fields, which is surrounded by high compound wall made of dried plants. Her father is a daily wager. She completed schooling until what village was able to offer that is primary education. After that she also started working in tobacco factories for some time and in fruit harvesting. Because of the poor background, it’s difficult to run the days on daily wages. There is no room for comforts and luxury is just dream.

                But in all this too, she would never miss Chitralahari, a musical program of movie songs which is like a jukebox those days, on every Friday at 7:30 in Door darshan. She will complete all her house chores and dinner by that time and will go to her friend’s home to watch it. To have the only entertainment in her mundane and hard life. When there is no work, she used to go to the only grocery store in the village which was owned by her distant relative. She goes there not for job but to listen songs from the radio. Since he has to sit the entire time in the same shop, he bought that radio in a second-hand bazar when he went to the town. It works sometimes and sometimes not. But if she is there to listen, she has to do some work while listening. The shop keeper kept that condition after observing her desperation for music.
It’s the season of cutting the vegetables so the work is going on. On one day morning, a tractor came to level the field after plucking the seasonal plantation. Songs were playing in loud sound from the tape recorder that was tied to tractor. The girl was surprised to hear songs in the middle of nowhere. She came out of her hut and compound to know from where the song is coming. She couldn’t see who is that person in the tractor. He wrapped his head with a towel and covered his face with scarf. She didn’t feel like walking there, to know him, because of fatigue. She went back, laid on handwoven jute cot, closed her eyes, enjoying the music. But the song was played in loop that she got bored after some time. She shouted from her hut itself,
“Mava! Change the song.”

He replied after a minute, may be after checking for voice, “I am not your radio to change songs as per your wish.”

“Then are you Chitralahari? Even so, they will change songs unlike you, who is (making song bored) ….”

“Ohho! Such an arrogant girl.”

Then he changed the song. They didn’t talk anything later. He played the songs from hit movies of the time. She felt so happy that, for once she could enjoy songs in her own hut, not going to her friend’s home, not having to work in the store.
  
                 That’s not a one-time thing for her, she understood it later. He used to drop by the fields near her hut everyday morning and evenings. Sometimes, it felt he is trying to convey something through her songs and sometimes it’s too random and meaningless. He even tries to tease her by stopping the songs in between. They never made any attempt to see each other. They wouldn’t even talk unless she asks which songs to play when she feels like listening to it. The time he comes by became her favourite thing of the day. (It’s like a spring to her autumn of life-nice line but doesn’t fit in). She will wait for that hour, by doing all her work in time. Some days, he wouldn’t come, she will ask the reason but his reply is just starting the songs. She doesn’t know who is he. He might had come for work, but now he became her source of happiness. 
            
              Her father arranged her marriage with a man from town. Even on her wedding day, she heard the coming of tractor, playing songs from the tape recorder, the songs from the latest movie, Prema. Then left. She also left the village after her marriage.
Places changed, so her life. The life happened. With the new found duties, family, turns and twists, never gave her a chance to sit and enjoy the music. Even if she felt like listening, she will remember the tape recorder from the tractor and the known yet unknown person who plays it. And she would give up.

                  She came to her village after years. The next day morning she woke up late. But woke up due to the roaring of a tractor, then as usual followed the songs. How he knows, why he came, does it mean something, did she want to know more… nothing mattered. She smiled, while still lying on her hand-woven jute cot, just like the first time it happened.

Then she thought in her mind,
“He is my Chitralahari. My only Chitralahari. Only my Chitralahari”